Baroness Maria von Trapp (front and center) with five of her stepdaughters. Back, left to right, Agatha, Hedwig and Johanna; center, left to right, Maria, and Martina, ca. 1940.

Everett Collection

Maria von Trapp, the last surviving member of the seven original Trapp Family Singers, the vocal group made famous by the movie “The Sound of Music,” has passed away. She was 99 years old.

Von Trapp died at her home in Vermont on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

Maria was the third child and second-oldest daughter of Capt. Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, his first wife, who died in 1922. He later married Maria von Trapp, who passed away in 1987.

In her autobiography “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers,” the elder Maria describes the younger one as “very delicate.” She writes “On account of her heart condition she had to be kept completely quiet.”

“The Sound of Music,” which told the story of the von Trapp family’s escape from Austria and the Nazis in the days before the start of World War II, premiered on Broadway in 1959 and was adapted into a 1965 film starring Julie Andrews (as the stepmother Maria) and Christopher Plummer (as Georg von Trapp).

“The Sound of Music” has continued to win over younger fans and drew big ratings when it was staged as a live TV musical on NBC last year with Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer in the lead roles.

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